Don't Write it Down (Rainbow Noir, #1)

by C. E. Wilson

  He’d say I was crazy. He always did.

  He always thought I was lying or nuts or losing my mind.

  He would say he would help. That he could help. That we could fix whatever was broken inside me because he always said that. And I almost believed him every single time.

  So I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell anyone about this. Not yet, anyway.

  “What are you going to do now?” Kevin asked, looking a bit helpless as he stood on the stoop of my townhouse. The building anxiety lifted as I realized that once I shut the door, I would be alone to do what I pleased. “You were so happy when I left. What happened, Emma? You can talk to me.”

  I shook my head. Not about this. I couldn’t tell anyone about this unless I wanted to end up in a looney bin.

  “I just need to get some sleep.” My voice sounded thick and hoarse like I hadn’t spoken in years. I didn’t say anything else, I just closed the door. Kevin’s lips parted, but he wasn’t able to get the sound out before I sealed him away.

  I walked over to the window and watched him walk away, phone to his ear. One of his mistresses could entertain him for a few days.

  Sleep. That was all I needed. Just some sleep.

  Chapter Six

  Blood. Mold. Sand and salt. Rotten eggs. Spoiled raw chicken.

  My nose scrunched up. A dream, probably. The smells were too real, the colors too vibrant. I glanced around my surroundings, expecting to find Jessen Blake lurching around like a six-foot tall zombie with biceps, but the street was empty. The houses were beautiful enough, and so was the neighborhood, but I saw no one.

  A town with no people.

  “Hello?” I called down the empty street, realizing that some of the cars were running. But no one was in them. Several front doors were thrown wide open, the insides of the homes darker than night. No one was in the homes, and no one was in the cars. A basketball bounced and then rolled to a standstill in an empty driveway. I jogged a few yards up the street, trying to reach the top of the hill, but the road seemed to stretch beyond the horizon The sky was a funny color. Not blue and gray, but red and orange. There was no sunlight. Colors blended and dripped together like an oil painting down to the roofs of the houses and dribbled down to the street with unpleasant pops.

  Before me was a town with no people. A town where the houses appeared to cry blood.

  “Hello?” I called again. My voice echoed in the neighborhood and its disorienting, dripping array of colors. The beauty of the reds and oranges contrasted sharply with the smell of how I imagined a rotting body would smell. I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t retch, coughing as I was forced to inhale the putrid air. The smell was so bad that it was almost something I could touch and taste. I struggled to catch my breath.

  I knew why I was here.

  And it was like Jessen Blake had said. It was my dream. If I wanted something, I only had to wish it so.

  “I need to talk to you!” I shouted into the bloody red sky. A giant blob of vibrant orange fell a few feet from me, and I dodged from the thick splash. “I know you’ll come if I call! So you might as well come out here, and fucking explain yourself!”

  Silence filled the air. I sucked in a gasp. I wanted to cry. I wanted to gag.

  “Please,” I said, allowing a rare vulnerability to hit my voice. “Jessen, you know I need to talk to you...” Steps. Loud steps were coming from behind the hill that stretched to infinity. I shifted around the orange puddle next to me to see a shape rapidly yet slowly approaching me from the distance. I expected to see decayed, rotting Jessen Blake, to find that he was the source of the all-encompassing stench. As the shape grew closer, I realized that I was partly right. It was Jessen Blake, but he was young again.

  He glowed. His skin was warm and full, taught and tight. He looked exactly like his age twenty-five author photograph, down to the same casually unbuttoned dress shirt. That was his portrait from the back of his third book, and it was the same picture that I had gazed at for countless hours early in my career as I daydreamed of success and recognition. Now this young version of Jessen Blake strode casually towards me at a terrible speed, his height seeming to grow and shrink with every step. The dribbling colors from the sky seemed to go out of their way to not hit him, curving around his strong shape as he ambled closer. His steps were eerie and hollow, and it took everything I had not to step away with each step he took.

  Finally, he halted a dozen feet away from me and stood silently as he looked around. He had no stubble and no glasses either. His intense, yet detached hazel eyes took me in and met me with that same eerie closed-lipped smile I remembered from the first time he haunted my dreams. I hated how attractive he was. After seeing him practically melt apart at my feet last time, I felt like I was finally better than him. But now I was afraid of the glow that surrounded him.

  “I was wondering if we would ever meet again,” he said, swinging out his arms dramatically. When I looked at him like he was the devil himself, he began to clap slowly, continuing to smile. “This is quite a setup. Usually, I can guess what you’ve been watching, but it seems that you are in a very original frame of mind at the moment. The theme seems to be that of... falling apart. Much like you, I’d suspect. How are you doing, Shade? Or would you rather I call you Emma today?”

  I licked my lips. I didn’t know. I didn’t know who I was anymore and I didn’t know which side of me was real. I didn’t even know why I called for Jessen. A wet glob of crimson dripped down from the sky directly above him, but he didn’t move an inch. The red bent away from him to splatter wetly on my shoulder and spread slowly down my chest before dripping off the hem of my shirt to the dirty pavement.

  When I didn’t answer him, he started to speak again.

  “I warned you about this, did I not?” His voice was darker than before. Stronger. Like the weight of being number one had been lifted from him and placed on me. He glowed, free of the red and orange shit that was beginning to cover me like an art school canvas. I met his eyes but didn’t speak yet. “I warned you to be careful. I’m assuming you called for me because you found out what it means to be number one?”

  “You’re crazy,” I said, feeling the world around us quiver. “What happened, it was a coincidence.”

  “Really?” He arched a dark eyebrow, still wearing that smile. “So you mean to tell me that you didn’t write about a man – a man very much like your father – stabbed in the heart in his sleep by a young teenager who thought him evil?”

  “It’s not possible,” I said shakily. “You can’t... you can’t write things down, and they come to life.”

  “Nothing came to life,” Jessen said. “If anything, they came to death.”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, resisting the urge to sound like mother and call him vulgar. “My father is dead.”

  “Irrevocably, I’m afraid. Which was why I warned you to be careful. Which was why I warned you to let me have number one.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Self-delusion will only carry you so far.” His smile shifted, and I saw teeth. Wicked teeth. White and perfect and in a straight line. I wanted him to return to his other smile. His closed-lipped smile made me uneasy, but this one frightened me to my fucking core.

  “What happened to my dad, that wasn’t because of me. I didn’t kill him.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No. And you can’t come here and convince me that I did.”

  He laughed. “Ahh, there you go. Blaming people for coming to you, when we only come when summoned. Your poor mother. You crazy—”

  “I didn’t kill anyone! Whatever psychotic bitch crawled in my parent’s window and stabbed him, that’s the murderer!”

  “Who you created! Don’t you see? This... all of this!” He waved his hand around for effect. “Is no different than the world you created with your words. You wrote about a man like your father. You had him killed in his bed while he was sleeping. Murdered by some smartass teenager. And now your dad is
dead. Stabbed in his bed while he was sleeping. Murdered by some smartass teenager.”

  “We don’t know who killed him.”

  “Oh, but we do! Emma in the conservatory with the lead pipe, Shade in the library with the candlestick.” He laughed like a maniac, clutching his sides as though he found this so humorous that he could barely contain himself. He buckled over and continued to shake as the sky dripped down my hair and face. I didn’t bother to wipe it off, staring at him with hate in my eyes. A plan formed in my mind.

  I didn’t have to believe this.

  “I don’t believe in you,” I muttered.

  He stopped laughing and rose up. His face was still mocking, but his eyes were cautious. “You don’t believe in me?”

  I shook my head, happy to see him slightly shaken. “What happened to my father wasn’t my fault.”

  “Then why bother to summon me if you’re so sure?” he asked, growing confident again.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I will do you a favor, Emma. I will tell you why. You called for me because you wanted answers. And you knew I was the only one who would be able to answer your question. That question being that of your culpability in the untimely death of your father.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I will answer your question as clearly as I can,” he continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “Yes. You killed him, Shade. Emma. Emma Ross. Whoever you want to call yourself this week, you killed your father. You killed him with your words. I warned you. And now that you know...” he took in a deep, shaky sigh, “... I hope you’ll be smart enough to return the title back to me before you can do any more damage. I know all about the curse, Emma. I can take this back. I will bear the burden—”

  “I don’t believe in you,” I said again in a steely voice. “This. All of this. I don’t believe in any of it. You’re lying. This isn’t real. I’m dreaming.”

  “But your father’s death is real, Emma.”

  “It was a coincidence,” I said, believing each word more and more as I shouted them. The sky overhead began to appear more solid. “I didn’t kill my dad. You can’t kill people with words! I’m... I’m just... I’m losing my mind. Lack of sleep. Too much drinking. Too much. I need my meds... I’m losing it. I’m losing it again, but I can fix it—”

  “This may be a dream, but I can assure you that the power you have is real. You mustn’t write another book killing anyone you know. You mustn’t ever hit number one again. Take some time to pull yourself together and don’t publish for awhile. Give me back the title—”

  “Like hell,” I snarled, taking a step back. The colors in the sky suddenly fell like red and orange hail all around us. It stuck to the air and the ground like cheese that was too thick and not quite melted. I caught a ball of orange and flung it towards his overly chiseled face. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe in you, and I certainly don’t believe in this. Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying. And you better believe that in the next book I write... I’m killing you.”

  His face contorted. “What?”

  Now I was the one who barked out a laugh. “Oh? Suddenly not so confident? That’s right! The next book I write, I’m killing off the great Jessen Blake! The Kurt Cobain of horror writers is going to be as dead in the author world as he is in real life! Then I can kiss these fucking nightmares with you haunting me goodbye.”

  “But you called me—”

  “So what? I’ll kill you!” I said, growing a bit crazed as the world around us filled with sticky blobs of red, orange and yellow in every variant. “And you better believe it’s going to be a gristly death!”

  “You should think of what you’ve already done to your father—”

  “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t been such an asshole. You’re the one trying to trick me into thinking that I did something to my dad. So if killing you means that you’ll stop haunting me, then you better prepare yourself because I’m going to make it hurt. You’re going to wish you’d never been born or died. I, the world’s top-selling author, have decreed it!”

  “Emma, you’re not making sense,” he stammered, trying to get closer.

  “Stay back!” I shouted, sending a massive wad of orange muck at his face. He coughed and sputtered, staggering backward as he tried not to fall. “This is my world, and no one will judge me here. Not Kevin. Not my mom and certainly NOT YOU!” I flung another piece towards him and he crumpled backward, struggling as the paintlike liquid formed tendrils that snaked around his form.

  “You’re not making sense,” he repeated as I stood over him. “If you don’t believe your words killed your father, then obviously you shouldn’t think that they will hurt me. I’m... I’m dead, remember... ah!” He gasped as the bright red rope squeezed him harder. His eyes bulged out.

  “This is a dream,” I said, smiling triumphantly. “Nothing has to make sense! So yeah! My words didn’t kill my father, but they sure as shit are going to kill your career in my next book!” The rope squeezed him tighter. I laughed, growing more manic and crazy as exquisite pain distorted his handsome face. “I’ll never call you again! I’ll never have to see you again! I’ll never have to listen to your crazy ideas!” I crouched down. “Kill people with words? Are you out of your mind? Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “You. Are. Crazy,” Jessen gasped as one eye popped out from its socket with the next squeeze.

  I chuckled and pushed it back into the hole.

  “Maybe,” I said, standing up. “But all that matters is I’m going to be rid of you after my next book. And then these dreams are going to stop. My father will still be dead, and that’s a shame. He died because some kid killed him. Wrong place, wrong time just like my mom said. It happens. But what happens to you?” I laughed and the swirling sky suddenly froze and solidified. A moment later, cracks started to form.

  A heavy rain began to fall, bowling ball sized drops of solid red and orange rock. I raised my arms towards the sky as I watched it fall, knowing that none would strike me.

  I couldn’t say the same for Jessen, though.

  I heard rather than saw the boulders that rained down and smashed his screaming body. Eventually the screams became pitiful cries which in turn faded to be replaced by wet thuds.

  On to the next book.

  Chapter Seven

  Jessen Blake stopped visiting my dreams after that night.

  I finished writing my next book quickly – both to the annoyance and excitement of Kevin who, after having all but moved back in, seemed to be no different than the jealous child I threatened to divorce a few years ago. Everything appeared to agitate him, and he took every little thing so personally.

  He complained that I wouldn’t let him sleep in my bedroom when I wanted to write late into the night.

  He complained that I didn’t let him watch anything that wasn’t a horror movie when I was in the groove.

  He especially hated finding out that I was killing Jessen Blake in my next novel.

  “Isn’t he like your idol or something?”

  “It’s hard for someone to be my idol when I’m better than they are,” I muttered, fingers still flying over the keyboard.

  “You used to say killing a competitor in your stories was career suicide.”

  “He’s already dead,” I said with a shrug. “What’s the difference?”

  “For one... he hasn’t been dead for that long. It’s not like killing Shakespeare or Chaucer or anything like that.”

  I spun around in my chair to fix him with a glare. “I didn’t know you read enough to know names like those, Kevin.” I swiveled back to the computer. “This book is set to release in two weeks.”

  “Don’t you think you should take a break? I mean, you just hit number one with your last release, and now you’re... you’re going to publish another one so quickly? I thought once you hit number one... that you...”

  “What?” I asked irritably, not stopping.

  “I thought you would sl
ow down a bit. Focus on the more important things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like us.”

  “Us?” I turned back.

  “Yeah,” he said, shrugging again. “I mean, there’s so much to work on and—”

  “What else do we need to do? You practically live here for God’s sake, and you eat all of my food and drink all of my booze.”

  He had the nerve to look offended. “I also cook all of the meals and do my best to tidy up this garbage dump you call home.”

  “Who asked you to do any of that?”

  He shrugged. “No one, I guess. But I thought...”

  “You. Thought. What?”

  “I thought once you hit number one that you would settle down a bit.” He waved his hand towards the computer screen. “I certainly didn’t think that you would be killing off Jessen Blake in your next release. And not so violently. Do you think your editor is going to let you get away with that?”

  “Even if she doesn’t, I’ll publish it without her. I’ll get a freelance editor or hell, I’ll edit it myself. I’ll pay for all the promo to make sure it hits number one. Trust me; this book is getting published with Jessen Blake’s graphic and total death in it.” I smiled to myself and swiveled back to the screen, admitting to myself that murdering my favorite author was quite pleasurable. Watching the life squeezed from him in a dream had been enough to create a realistic scenario with words. I knew how he screamed. I knew his insides were pink and red and every shade in-between. I had all the requisite research completed without the hassle of a dead body that required disposal.

  I paused. Dead body. My dad. Still dead.

  I hadn’t told Kevin.

  He had to know. He had to know that I knew too. He probably thought it would upset me. That I had to deal with things in my way. But I wasn’t quite sure how he knew to keep it from me. My emotions were dangerous, and my mania was worse than usual at the moment, but still. He waas either ignorant or too terrified of me to bring it up.